Muslim husband murders wife for leaving Islam for Christianity

Chiqui Guyjoco Wednesday, June 01, 2016

A Muslim husband in eastern Uganda killed his wife in the early morning of May 8 after she refused to join him in morning Islamic prayers, confirming his suspicion that she had become a Christian.

Family members and relatives of the deceased as well as neighbors in Mbaale village, Imanyiro Sub-County, Mayuge District, narrated the tragic incident to Morning Star News.

Catholic faithful pray in front of a cross of Jesus Christ erected by a roadside in Kakoge, north of Uganda's capital Kampala, October 18, 2015. Pope Francis makes his first pontifical visit later this month to Africa, where Catholicism has grown rapidly over the last few years. | REUTERS/JAMES AKENA

The 34-year-old Awali Kakaire had already been suspecting 30-year-old Mariam Nakirya for leaving Islam ever since the local imam asked why his wife and children were no longer seen in mosque prayers or in madrassa (Islamic school).

"Our father questioned us why we have stopped attending the madrassa, but we told him that we were busy with school work as our mother had instructed us," the son, whose identity is hidden for security purposes, told the publication. "Our mother told our father that she has been busy instructing us on school homework. This made my father to cool down his tempers."

Kakaire strangled Nakirya to death at 6 a.m., shortly after he awoke, because of her refusal to join him in morning Islamic prayers.

The son also narrated how his father forced him and his four other siblings into a hole their father dug in a nearby garden, two hours after their mother was killed. The children, ages five to 12, resisted and began screaming which caught the neighbors' attention.

Michael Kirunda, Kakaire's brother, said that his brother tried to escape as the neighbors started questioning him and only cried out, "My family has no respect for Islam."

Kakaire escaped, believed to have the backing of Muslims. The children are now distributed between Kirunda and their 80-year-old grandmother who said that the children are traumatized and crying for their mother.

An unnamed Christian evangelist, who made a series of house-to-house visits while Kakaire was away for lengthy business trips, revealed that Nakirya became a Christian in August 2015.

"If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn't exist today," Jihad Watch quoted the world's most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

The publication, reporting that the death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law, also featured a hadith taken from Bukhari 9.84.57 depicting Prophet Muhammad's order, "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him."